Australian Greens SA is a

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

political party located in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It is a member of the federation of the

Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly referred to simply as the Greens, are a Left-wing politics, left-wing green party, green Australian List of political parties in Australia, political party. As of 2025, the Greens are the third largest politica ...

party. The party has four members in the federal and state parliaments:

Sarah Hanson-Young Sarah Coral Hanson-Young (née Hanson; born 23 December 1981) is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since July 2008, representing the Australian Greens. She is the youngest woman to be elected to federal parlia ...

and Barbara Pocock in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

; and Tammy Franks and Robert Simms in the

South Australian Legislative Council The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the South Australian House of Assembly, H ...

Electoral history

Prior to 1995, a very small local Green party not connected to the emerging Australian Greens contested a number of State and Federal elections. This party was more or less non-functioning by the time

Mark Parnell Mark Charles Parnell (born 9 September 1959) is an Australian former politician and parliamentary leader of the SA Greens in the South Australian Legislative Council. He was the first SA Greens representative to be elected to the Parliament o ...

called the first meetings to establish a new Green Party in 1995. It took a number of attempts to get the new party off the ground, however a visit to Adelaide by

Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is an Australian former politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a Australian Senate, senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian ...

in late 1995 provided the necessary impetus to register the new party. The Australian Greens (SA) first ran in the 1996 federal election and the 1997 state election. In both elections they received around two percent of the statewide upper house vote. Since that time, the Greens SA have steadily built up a support base at state and federal elections, partly due to the demise of the Democrats. The Greens SA now have two MLCs and two senators, with polling since the 2013 federal and 2014 state elections by

Newspoll Newspoll is an Australian opinion polling brand, published by ''The Australian'' and administered by Australian polling firm Pyxis Polling & Insights. Pyxis is founded by the team led by Dr Campbell White, who redesigned Newspoll's methodology ...

showing the Green vote consistently above 10 percent.

2002 Labor defection

Kris Hanna, the member for Mitchell, was elected as a

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

member in 1997, but changed to The Greens in 2003. Hanna left the party in February 2006, citing constituents' wishes for him not to be bound to any party.

2006 state election

At the 2006 state election, Environmental lawyer

became the first Green candidate to be elected in South Australia, securing a position in the

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

on a primary vote of 4.3 percent. A vote of 6.5 percent was achieved in the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

, an increase of 4.1%. The best lower house result was in the

electoral district of Heysen Heysen is a single-member Electoral districts of South Australia, electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after Sir Hans Heysen, a prominent South Australian landscape artist. It is a 1,074 km2 electoral d ...

, on a primary vote of 17.7 percent. Heysen was also the Democrats closest lower house win, coming as close as 1.9 percent at the 1997 state election on a primary vote of 29.2 percent, finishing at 48.1 percent after preferences.

2007 federal election

Fourth on the 2006 state ticket,

was first on the ticket at the 2007 federal election, and became South Australia's first Greens

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

. She won the sixth and final South Australian Senate position with a primary vote of 6.5 percent. The strongest Green votes in the Senate came from

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, Boothby and Mayo.

2008 Mayo federal by-election

Sparked by the resignation of

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

Alexander Downer Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United Ki ...

, a Mayo by-election was held in 2008. Labor chose not to contest the by-election. Greens candidate Lynton Vonow finished second, on a primary vote of 21.35 percent amongst a field of 11 candidates, a swing of 10.39 percent, and finished on a final vote of 46.97 percent after the distribution of preferences, falling narrowly short of taking the seat from the Liberals.

2010 state election

Prior to the 2010 state election, the Greens had gone from four to ten percent and above in state Newspolls. In the lower house, the vote increased to 8.1 percent, with the upper house vote to 6.6 percent which elected Tammy Jennings (now Tammy Franks).

2010 federal election

At the 2010 federal election, polls showed a similar substantial increase. The Greens SA received a swing of 6.8 percent in South Australia for the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives. The powers, role and composition of the Senate are set out in Chap ...

, to finish with 13.3 percent of the statewide vote. Penny Wright was subsequently elected, joining Hanson-Young and 7 other Green Senators from July 2011.

2013 federal election

Hanson-Young was re-elected at the 2013 federal election with a statewide primary vote of 7.1 percent. The Greens polled strongest in the seat of Mayo with over 14 percent of the primary vote.

2014 state election

Parnell was re-elected at the 2014 election with the upper house statewide primary vote at 6.5 percent. The lower house statewide primary vote was 8.7 percent. Lynton Vonow contested the seat of Heysen for the Greens and came second after preferences with a 39 percent two-candidate preferred vote from a 19.7 percent primary vote. The Greens have consistently polled strongest in Heysen but with preferences overtook the Labor candidate. The Greens also polled well in seats such as Kavel and Davenport with primary votes over 15 percent.

2015 Senate casual vacancy

Penny Wright resigned from the

due to family reasons in September 2015. Later that month, Robert Simms was appointed to the

casual vacancy ''The Casual Vacancy'' is a novel written by British author J. K. Rowling, published worldwide by the Little, Brown Book Group on 27 September 2012. It was Rowling's first publication since the ''Harry Potter'' series, her first novel apart fr ...

by a joint sitting of the

Parliament of South Australia The Parliament of South Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the 47-seat South Australian House of Assembly, House of Assembly (lower house) and the 22-seat South Australian Legislati ...

2016 federal election

When

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Turnbull announced in March 2016 that a

double dissolution A double dissolution is a procedure permitted under the Australian Constitution to resolve deadlocks in the bicameral Parliament of Australia between the House of Representatives (lower house) and the Senate (upper house). A double dissolutio ...

would be taking place in May and an election in July, the party was forced for the first time to choose between their two senators, and preselected Sarah Hanson-Young to the number 1 preference on the Senate ballot, with Robert Simms at number 2. Only Hanson-Young was reelected, being assigned a 3-year term.

2018 state election

Tammy Franks was re-elected to the Legislative Council with a statewide vote of 5.87% in the upper house.

2019 federal election

Sarah Hanson-Young was re-elected to the Senate with a statewide upper-house swing of +5.03% and a total vote of 10.9% despite a modest swing of +3.4% in the lower house. The party polled strongest in the seat of Adelaide, where Barbara Pocock received 15.7% of first preference votes.

2019 Cheltenham and Enfield by-elections

Steffi Medrow received 14.6% of first preferences with a swing of +8.3% in the 2019 Cheltenham state by-election. Sebastian Konyn received 8.3% of first preferences in the 2019 Enfield state by-election, a result unchanged from Cassie Alvey's result in the 2018 election

2021 casual Legislative Council vacancy

Robert Simms was preselected to contest the

2022 South Australian state election The 2022 South Australian state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly, House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were electe ...

, but when Mark Parnell resigned from Parliament on 9th April, Simms was appointed to the state upper house on 4 May 2021. Tammy Franks became the parliamentary leader of the party.

2022 state election

Simms was re-elected to the state's upper house with a statewide Legislate Council vote of 9% and a swing of +3.2%. Sean Cullen-MacAskill received 13.5% of first preference votes in the seat of

2022 federal election

With Hanson-Young not requiring re-election in the middle of her six-year term, the party sought to double its upper-house representation. With a Senate swing of +0.99% and a total vote of 11.9%,

Prof Jacob Lukas Anderson (born April 29, 1984), better known by his stage name Prof, is an American rapper, singer, and producer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He released his first full-length album, ''Project Gampo'', in 2007 and has since relea ...

Barbara Pocock AM was elected as SA's newest senator. The party polled strongest in the

Division of Adelaide The Division of Adelaide is an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian electoral division in South Australia and is named for the city of Adelaide, South Australia's capital. At the 2016 Australian federal election, 2 ...

, where Rebecca Galdies received 20.1% of first preference votes.

2022 Bragg by-election

To fill the seat vacated by Vickie Chapman, the party preselected Jim Bastiras as the candidate for the Bragg by-election.

State election results

Legislative Assembly

Legislative Council

Federal election results

Structure

State Council

The party's State Council meets once a quarter to deal with the party's administrative matters. The party also has a Policy and Campaigning Council, which includes representatives from branches and member action groups and meets every two months to shape the party's strategic priorities

Branches

Branches are where new members first meet other Greens, talk politics and policy, get involved in local campaigning and fundraising, and find out about what else is going on.

Member action groups

A variety of member action groups have been established by the State Council, which are directly accessible to all Greens members. Working groups perform an advisory function by developing policy, conducting issues-based campaigns, or by performing other tasks assigned by the State Council. These groups include: * Indigenous Issues * Animal welfare * Greenhouse, energy and nuclear * Queer Greens * Young Greens

Members of Parliament

Federal Parliament

File:Sarah Hanson-Young.png,

, Greens SA

elected in 2007. File:Barbara_Pocock_(cropped).jpg, Barbara Pocock, Greens SA

elected in 2022.

Former federal members

* Penny Wright (2011–2015) * Robert Simms (2015–2016)

State Parliament

Robert Simms.jpg, Robert Simms, Greens SA MLC appointed in 2021 to replace

. File:Tammy_franks_crop.jpg, Tammy Franks, Greens SA MLC elected in 2010.

Former state members

* Kris Hanna (2003–2006), elected in 1997 for the Labor Party, defected to the Greens in 2003 and sat as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

until 2010. *

(2006–2021), Greens SA MLC elected in 2006.

References

{{Australian Greens

Political parties in South Australia